Just A Dream
by bazzer
Summary: /If you ever loved somebody put your hands up/ Santana enlists Punk!Quinn's help in getting Brittany back. How you might ask? How else? Unholy Trinity Friendship   Brittana TwoShot
1. Chapter 1

Title: Just a Dream (½)

Pairings: Brittana. Minor Faberry

Friendships: over arching Unholy Trinity, sub line Quintana, Fierce/Quitt

Inspired by: Quinn's pink hair, _Just A Dream_ by Nelly (audio on the page), me not wanting to write TifR

Rated: T (for Quinn and Santana's language)

Summary: _If you ever loved somebody put your hands up_

Word Count: 2,320

Disclaimer: I don't own _Glee_ or it's beautiful women, er, characters.

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><p>Quinn Fabray was aware it was moderately sociopathic, her tendency to try on and wear personalities like outfits. She changed who she was on a daily basis, no warning, no remorse. Don't want to be the unpopular social outcast anymore? Okay, let's shoot for top of the social food chain. Head cheerleader has a nice ring to it. Pad your popularity resume, date the quarterback, make friends with the meanest and the nicest girl in school. They're already best friends and codependent on one another? Even better. Keep the lowest members of the class system down. Call people out on how they differ from the norm you've set. If they aren't beautiful on your scale, make sure they know it. Slushie the girl in knee socks and Mary Janes. She still have spirit in her? Crush it.<p>

Tired of that trite existence? Don't want to be the virginal president of the celibacy club anymore? Have sex with the biggest man whore in the school. He's best friends with your boyfriend? Even fucking better. Granted, the whole pregnancy thing sort of threw that one into a whole other direction that you weren't entirely prepared for. The getting kicked out of your home and disowned by your father was a rather violent kick in the teeth. Not to mention the whole growing a human being in your body (completely destroying all the work you'd spent the last two years putting into those abs) and loving it before it really even exists only to give her away because you know,_ you fucking know_, she'll be better off without you.

Yeah, all that self-esteem you thought you had? Gone.

Back to the basics. Rebuild your reputation. New quarterback, new boyfriend.

Maybe she should have just walked away from glee the first time she had the chance. Or the second. Or the third.

Why did she keep going back to it?

Change in the first string line-up? Switch it up, go with the flow. Bide your time. But fuck it all if these people don't get under your skin. Those stupid gleeks their annoying almost unyielding good-will. Sam and his promise rings, don't-pity-me- angry frown and mournfully adorable siblings. Puck's stupid chauvinistic smirk and sad eyes. Santana and her Ima-badass-from-Lima-Heights-Adjacent and stopped-being-subtle-the-first-thousand-times sex eyes at Brittany. And Brittany? God, that girl.

There were times you're convinced the whole 'vapid, blonde cheerleader' is a personality Brittany wears when she's around certain (most) people because there are the things that she says when only you can hear, or the way she looks at you like she_knows everything_. You can hide from any one, present any front and the masses would line up to believe you've been like that from the very beginning, but not Brittany.

Or Rachel Berry, for what ever it matters.

That scene at prom shouldn't have happened. You can't believe you got so out of hand, but it was Rachel and the girl just pushes, and pushes and _pushes_. And you can't really help that you snapped because you can handle Britt seeing that side of you, because Britt won't call you out on it. Brittany can keep a secret, whether she means to or not. But Rachel has this weird obsession with getting everything out in the open, and it fucks with your plans because you like your secrets to be _secret_.

But you can't bring the diva down the way you would before because she's under your skin without you wanting her there. She's a part of your life without your permission. Every which way you turn, she's there. She's friends with your friends. She's _dating your ex-boyfriends_. And the only consolation you have is that even though you've fallen from social grace, she hasn't risen. And you can't explain it, that feeling of absolute panic that arises within you at the thought that she might one day be so far_above _you that you aren't even in the same stratosphere anymore but there it is. There it is where it shouldn't be, so what do you do?

Dye your hair, pick up a cancer stick, rip holes in the knees of Britt's skinny jeans.

_Be somebody else_.

It's a hell of a lot easier than _dealing _at any point.

She's drawn out of her musings when the sound of crunching gravel taps her eardrums and she finds herself glaring passed the lit cigarette dangling between her fingers at the toes of shiny new white sneakers. Cheerio standard. Sue Sylvester standard.

"You look like shit, Fabray."

Santana.

Quinn starts to fight a smirk, but realizes that this new personality, this girl with the inverted cross on her shirt and a stud in her nose probably does smirk, so she lets it out even as she keeps her head ducked to cover it with pink-shaded hair. She brings the burning stick to her mouth and takes a drag, fighting like hell against the urge to cough it right back up. It's not an easy habit to pick up, deliberately filling your lungs with smoke and you've veins with chemicals and she's only been doing it four three days. At least she stopped throwing up afterwards.

"What the fuck do you want, Lopez?" he voice is gravel to her own ears so she can only imagine what it sounds like to her the person she might have once considered her best friend. Maybe. Those lines never were easily drawn. And if the darker girl is at all thrown off by Quinn use of language, it doesn't come across in her voice.

"School started, like, two hours ago and your sneaking smokes under the bleachers. Please tell me what's wrong with this picture."

Quinn can't help it, she snickers into her hand which quickly transforms into a shoulder shaking, full bodied cough. All phlegm and gunk, and it _feels _as disgusting as it sounds and she knows when she looks up Santana is going to be smirking down at her like she just proved her God damned point. She flings the cigarette away like it was at fault and kind of wants to kick something because she may have been the master of condescending looks, but nobody smirked like Santana Lopez.

She does look up, knowing she can't avoid it forever and wants to get it over with as quickly as possible, and immediately her eyes are drawn to the WMHS emblazoned on the other girl's chest. She could have guessed what the darker girl was wearing based on the shoes alone, but there was something about undeniable proof staring her in the face that made her fists curl in anger.

If Quinn changed personalities like outfits, then Santana wore this one like her favorite pair of sweatpants. Comfortable and loose. The pair you know you should throw out because they haven't flattered you in ages (they never really did) but you keep them around because you can slip them on without thought or strain.

"Eyes are up here,_ Fab-gay_." Snark, Quinn could deal with snark.

"Nice outfit,_ Lez-pez_, how much of your soul did that particular brand of conformity cost you?"

Santana clicked her tongue and the former head cheerleader winced, suddenly aware of the headache she'd gotten from smoking and hacking up half a lung. "Oh yes, please, lecture me on conformity when you're sitting there looking like every other fake-ass punk wannabe burnout that I've ever seen in my life."

They glare at one another for a moment, two alphas looking for a weakness, any weakness, to exploit. Quinn sees one first, she must have because she's never know Santana to hesitate, and it's there, written all over tanned features. Dark, baggy circles under her eyes, worry lines etching themselves at the corners of her mouth and small wisps of hair out of an otherwise uniform ponytail. _"I look like shit_?" she rehashed, "Have you looked in a mirror lately or do they all shatter as soon as you do?" She watches as Santana's nostrils flare and her jaw moves like she's grinding her teeth, and Quinn realizes starkly that the other girl _was _holding back. She sort of want to play with it, see how far she can push the other girl until she snaps, but it's the way that notion mirrors her earlier thought about Rachel that makes her stop. "Spit it out, Santana, before you fracture something," she rolls her eyes and digs through the messenger bag by her feet until it produces a ballpoint pen. Just because she was willing to listen didn't mean she had to look interested.

She starts with random swirls on the inside of her wrist, no particular pattern in mind and she forces herself not to glance up when the sound of gravel grinding gravel picks up again and she can only assume the cheerleader in front of her it dragging her feet across the ground. Nerves? From Santana_ Mother Fucking_ Lopez?

"I need your help."

It's quick, strung together like one word and low, off to the side like the smaller girl was no longer looking at Quinn, but the (sort of) blonde had been straining to hear it and did so without any trouble. Still. "I'm sorry? What was that?" she glanced up through pale eyelashes.

Santana's nose was flared something fierce and her lips were pressed almost painfully as she glared down on an unnaturally calm Quinn. "Your help. I need your fucking help." Their little staring contest begins again and know that she knows what to look for Quinn can pick up on things easier. Like the way Santana keeps her hands at her thighs, purposefully not crossing them across her chest or how the nails on her right hand have been bitten down to the quick. She was nervous as fuck and trying like hell to remain open and honest. But her head was still held high, proud. It would be endearing, perhaps even a little heartening, if the blonde didn't already know exactly what this pertained to.

"Brittany finally gave you the ultimatum then?" she dismissed apathetically, eyes back down on the ink staining her wrist. Punks were apathetic, right? Rebellious, don't-give-a-fuck types?

Whatever, that's how she was going to play it.

"She told you about that?" her voice was crossed somewhere between a groan and a whine and from the upper limit of her vision Quinn could see tan hands drop further along tan legs from how heavy shoulders deflating.

Quinn snorted. "If by _that _you mean everything then yeah, she told me _that_. You realize you aren't her only friend, right? There are other people in the world she talks to." Santana's fingers twitched against the underside of her skirt, and the blonde shook her head at the faltering gesture. Just because the Latina was anti-social and hated everyone, didn't mean Brittany was the same. It made more fucking sense that the other blonde was the most friendly and open person Quinn had ever met, considering the girl was head-over-fucking-heels for her polar opposite. "Besides," she shrugged like the information she was about to deliver didn't matter, "Who do you think told her to give you one?"

She keeps the pen moving against her skin but her eyes are totally focused on Santana's right hand curling into a fist. The darker girl was left-handed, but Quinn knew she liked to swing with her right first to get a fight off the ground and if she was going to get decked she wanted some sort of forewarning. But the fight went out of her almost as quickly as it came and she was shoulders-slumped and angst-y once more. "I can't believe she_ told you_." It irks Quinn more than it probably should, that Santana was willing to give up that quickly.

"You can't seriously be mad at her for it," but the look she's giving the darker girl is wholly ignored. Quinn had spent a lot of time with Brittany over the summer, and yeah, they talked about it. They talked about everything. Brittany didn't work things out in her head, she was more of a talker and Quinn? Well, Quinn was good at listening to what Brittany _wasn't _saying. And for everything bit of information she gleaned from the taller girl, there were about a million more that stayed locked up in her head. "You told her you were in love with her, then got pissed when she wouldn't break up with the first decent relationship she had since Mike Chang in the eighth grade for you, even though you were still with Sam. And then when she _does _break up with him you blow her off rather than _talk to her _because you're _scared _and when you both finally get to a good place, you freak again and make out with half the football team at Puck's party. She had to talk to _someone _and considering you're the one she normally goes to and that avenue was kind of off limits, you should thank God she loves you enough to go to the only other person in the whole fucking world who knows you well enough_not _to flip her shit about it."

Santana's glaring at the ground and Quinn's back to wanting to kick her to get _some sort of reaction_ that she could work with. The blonde huffs and throws her pen back into the bag, blowing on the ink on her skin to dry it and, wait… _did that kind of look like a five point star_?

"She loves me?"

Quinn blinks and looks up to find Santana's fingers twisted together uncertainly. "You're a fucking idiot, but yeah, she loves you. She's fucking _in love_ with you, and you already know that."

"So you'll help me." She stating it now, not asking and the former head cheerleader realizes that it was had been coming down to this point from the very beginning.

"Yeah, I'll help you," she sighs and adds "_bitch_" for good measure, just because she could.

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><p>Thoughts? And <strong><em>yes<em>** I'm aware I should be working on This is for Real, but it's _hard_.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Just a Dream (2/2)

Pairings: Brittana. An inkling of Faberry

Friendships: over arching Unholy Trinity, sub line Quintana, Fierce/Quitt

Inspired by: Quinn's pink hair, _Just A Dream_ by Nelly (audio on the page), me not wanting to write TifR

Rated: T (for Quinn and Santana's language)

Summary: _If you ever loved somebody put your hands up_

Word Count: 2,294

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><p>Santana Lopez wasn't a coward.<p>

She didn't scare easily, she didn't crack under pressure and she was a fucking stone cold bitch when the situation called for it. That being said, what she was about to do was making her shake in a way that she never had before. Unfortunately it was something she knew she had to do, a step she had to take because the direction it would lead her was the only direction she ever wanted to be pointed in. The stage had been set for well over a year, and she knew, she fucking _knew_, that this was the only way she was going to be able to have Brittany on that road with her.

For all the time the blonde spent dancing in the background of New Directions she wasn't the type of girl that was meant to stay there. And if Santana wanted to call the blonde her own, legitimately _wanted_ her, she was going to have to lay her claim in front of the world and everyone in it. There was no rule, however, that said she couldn't do it in baby steps. And Brittany always had been one to appreciate small gestures as well as big ones, so starting with their ragtag group of friends was a natural first step. A step that had her eying the exit when her palms started to sweat and her knees began to waver.

She could feel the stares like physical pinpricks on the back of her tight, black boyfriend Tee but none burned quite like the half-glance she was getting from Quinn Fabray. They stood in the front of the choir room, side-by-side with their backs to the rest of the club, barely inches between them. It was necessary, to a point, a part of the hurried choreography they'd thrown together the day before but it also served the purposed of making them unable to see the confused looks from the rest of the club. Quinn didn't really give a rat's ass one way or the other, but Santana was on the verge of snapping the cordless microphone in her hand into multiple pieces, so the pink-haired teen figured they could use the extra bit of obscurity to calm her anxiety. From his bench, Brad was shooting them a questioning look and the rest of the band watched him for their own cues but neither girl was paying him the slightest mind, and they wouldn't until Santana was ready. Quinn stood with her shoulders in a forced dropped slump that made her look completely at ease and indifferent, but her eyes were on her darker counterpart, weighing her options should the other girl suddenly make a break for it. Not that she thought Santana would actually run, but she was as nervous as Quinn had ever seen her and it was having the unfortunate effect of putting _her_ on edge.

"You don't have to do this, you know," she hummed and buffed her dark painted nails against the front of her own black shirt, making sure eyes were diverted downward when the other girl turned a sharp look on her.

Santana blinked and bit her tongue, stopping herself before she said something she might possibly one day come to regret. Quinn was helping her when she didn't have to, when she by all rights could have said "_fuck off_" and never spoken to her again. She tilted her chin down and glanced sidelong at the group of kids gathered on the chairs. When she found bright blue eyes without trying a sort of calm settled over her, the strain of her stress lessening until all she could feel was the beat of her own heart slowing down to its normal pace. "I kind of do," she confessed and with a sigh to expel the lingering tension, she made a vague gesture in the direction of the man at the piano.

Brad took that as his cue and started up with the proper notes. The two girls relaxed into their starting positions, but by the third note Santana's fingers twitched in the direction of the former head cheerleader, drawing her attention from counting into her intro. "Hey, Q?" she heard mumbled under her breath and just over the tone of the piano.

The former cheerleader dropped her mic slightly and looked at her friend. "Yeah?"

"You honestly don't care? Like, at all?"

There was no context, but given the situation Quinn didn't think there were very many things the darker girl could be referring to in that tone of voice.

"No, Santana," she shook her head slightly to punctuate the point and used her full name to make it stick, "I _honestly _don't fucking care."

Two more notes and there were tan knuckles brushing against the outside of her wrist.

"Q?"

"Yeah?" she sighed and tipped her chin to glance at Santana under raised eyebrows.

"I," her lips twitched like what she was about to say had been hiding there on the tip of her tongue for a while now, "I love her."

Quinn rolled her eyes and shifted back, "I know."

"No," she pulled her hand back to her own side and looked over at the bearded man as their cue was rapidly approaching, "I'm fucking _in_ love with her."

The former blonde did smile at that, she couldn't help it, the corners of her lips quirked upward and there was a lightness she felt in her chest at the unabashedly _glow_ that blossomed within Santana at those words. The two friends shared a smile, slight, eyes barely meeting eyes, but it was there. "I knew that too," she winked, lifting the microphone to her lips and spinning in the same movement, "_Uh, uh, uh…_"

"_I was thinkin' 'bout her, thinkin' 'bout me, thinkin' 'bout us, what we gonn' be? Open my eyes, yeah, it was only just a dream._" She curled her free hand and closed her eyes tight, holding the note on her breath until Santana joined her in facing the select group of their peers.

Dark eyes locked to blue and she wanted to laugh and cry all in the same second, but she already had her game face on. "_So I traveled back, down that road. Will she come back? No one knows. I realize, yeah…_"

"… _it was only just a dream,_" they harmonized and Quinn stepped back so Santana could take the lead on the first verse.

"_I was at the top and now its like I'm in the basement, number one spot and now she found her a replacement. I swear now I can't take it, knowin' somebody's got my baby,_" her eyes cut to Artie who was sitting a few seats down from Brittany. She knew they weren't together anymore, knew it because for the better part of the summer the blonde had been with _her,_ until she'd fucked it up at a Puck's party that was. "_And now you ain't around, baby, I can't think," _she pressed the heel of her hand against her temple, _"I should've put it down, should've got that ring. 'Cause I can still feel it in the air, see her pretty face," _she reached out to ghost her fingers along the air around Brittany's face, but refrained from actually touching her,_ "run my fingers through her hair. My love of my life, my shorty, my wife. She left me, I'm tight, 'cause I knew that it just ain't right."_

"_Oh_," Quinn jumped in and with a hand on Santana's shoulder brought her back, "_I was thinkin' 'bout her, thinkin' 'bout me, thinkin' 'bout us, what we gonn' be? Open my eyes, yeah, it was only just a dream._"

"_So I traveled back, down that road_," the darker girl nodded to Quinn, thankful for her being there, "_Will she come back? No one knows. I realize, yeah…_"

"…_it was only just a dream._"

Quinn stepped forward, tapping her hand against her chest, "_When I be ridin', man, I swear I see her face at every turn, tryin' ta get my Usher on but I can't let it burn, and I just hope she know that she's the only one I yearn for. More and more I miss her, when will I learn?_"

The girls faced one another, playing off one another for the next section.

"_Didn't give her all my love, I guess now I got my payback._"

"_Now I'm in the club thinking all about my baby._"

"_Hey," _Santana looked over at Brittany, _"she was so easy to love_"

"_But wait," _pink locks fell into golden green eyes when she shook her head, eyes scanning the risers, landing naturally on a familiar pair of wide, brown eyes, _"I guess that love wasn't enough_." She sighed, and screwed her eyes upward, slipping effortlessly into the next part. "_I'm going through it everytime that I'm alone and now I'm missin', wishin' she'd pick up the phone but she made the decision that she wanted to move on, oh, 'cause I was wrong_," she tore herself back, but whatever the next part of their choreography was supposed to be, Santana was stilled to her spot, microphone raised and entire existence focused on the blonde sitting before her.

"_I was thinkin' 'bout you, thinkin' 'bout me, thinking' 'bout us, what we gonn' be? Open my eyes, yeah, it was only just a dream_." Quinn smirked at the subtle change in lyrics, and watched the smiles of the rest of the gleeks spread at what the message meant. "_So I traveled back, down that road, are ya comin' back? No one knows, I realize, yeah, it was only just a dream._"

"_If you ever loved somebody put your hands up_," the pink-haired girl sang, amused by the immediately reactions of the other members of New Directions, "_if you ever loved somebody put your hands up, and now they're gone and you're wishing you could give them everything_."

"_Said if you ever loved somebody put your hands up, if you ever loved somebody put your hands up,_" Santana reached out, extending her fingers to where Brittany sat stock still with a wavering smile on her face. "_Now you're gone and I'm wishing I could give you everything_."

"_Uh, uh uh… _

Quinn sang the chorus once more and Santana was supposed to follow with the last repeat, but she'd already dropped the microphone to her side and was offering her free hand to Brittany, mouthing words that Quinn could only assume were apologetic. So, the former cheerleader took the last lines solemnly, letting her voice fade in and out with the piano, playing with it in a way only she knew how. Then Brad and the band were on their own and Brittany's fingers were intertwined with those of the girl before her. There was a tug, soft but insistent and Santana was standing in the vee created by the dancer's legs. The blonde was shaking her head and looking around at the other teens in the room and Quinn felt her breath catch, she'd talked to Brittany, knew how the girl felt, knew how _this was supposed to go_ and if Brittany changed her mind _now _then she knew Santana wouldn't recover from it for a very long time. If she recovered at all.

The sitting blonde said something, too low to be heard over the last notes of Brad's piano, but the microphone in Santana's hand hit the ground with an ear-shattering _screech! _and in the harsh stillness that followed the blonde's voice rang out clear as a bell. "But you can't pretend they're all furniture, San."

Quinn took a quick inventory of the others in the room and they all looked as confused as she felt so when Santana gave a half laugh/half sob she figured it was one of those Brittany-isms that only the two of them understood. And then she heard Brad's quiet chortle behind her.

"I know," the darker cheerio was confirming, rubbed futilely at her pooling tears with the side of her hand. "I just," she spared a look at them now, the other members of New Directions and the people that had seen her cry more times than she cared to admit. She flushed slightly when she realized the attention she had drawn to herself, but steeled herself and pushed on. "I love you, okay? And I'm sorry about this summer and being stupid Puck's party and _all _of last year and if I have to stand up in front of _them_ to get _you _to believe me, then I will. Every day for the rest of our fucking lives."

"San…"

"Don't say no," her voice cracked and Quinn had never heard her sound that _desperate _before. It was painful to listen to, hearing one of the strongest people she knew sound that vulnerable. "_Please_, Britt, just give me _one more _chance."

The answer was in the blonde's eyes first but, other than Santana, Quinn was the only one who knew her well enough to see it so when the twinkle in her baby blues flashed and the corners crinkled, the former blonde ducked her head to hide the joyful tears gathering in her own eyes. How was she supposed to rock the badass pink hair and punk attitude if she was fucking crying where anyone could see her? Her hair was too short, however, to hide her smile from anyone who may have been looking. There was an _oomph _and a _sigh_, and three years of sleepover history told her _exactly _what was going on so when the cheer went up from the rest of the glee-clubbers she didn't have to look.

She knew it turned out exactly how it was supposed to.

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><p>Thoughts? I think this is my first songfic. Which is weird and I'm not sure I like writing them : But it was a fun experiment and now I can get back to TifR.

RPX: glad you stumbled upon it, and I'm glad you enjoyed it :D

Tane: I hope you enjoyed this part as well!

your. kat (Molly): you, you are just too much, you know? ;) glad you liked my attempt at Punk!Rebel!Quinn


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